“If there is conflict over Taiwan – let us say that China loses the first few battles, gets bloodied – it will evoke in the Chinese body politic a reaction as profound as that in the US of Pearl Harbor,” he said. “This is that serious, and people who do not know the history do not realize the game they’re playing.”
Singapore’s former top diplomat warned on Monday that a conflict in Taiwan would trigger a Chinese response akin to the US reaction to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor that precipitated its entrance into World War II.
Former Foreign Minister George Yeo told Bloomberg Television, without naming anyone, that “people” don’t understand just how deep an issue Taiwan is for China and underestimate the severity of a conflict if one were to come. Already fraught ties between the US and China have continued to deteriorate since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visited the self-governing island last month amid concerns a miscalculation could lead to conflict.
